Separable developmental trajectories for the abilities to detect auditory amplitude and frequency modulation

Results are presented for detection of sinusoidal amplitude modulation (AM) superimposed upon linear-frequency-modulated, 120-ms tone bursts. Thresholds for detection of AM were obtained using an adaptive 2IFC procedure over a range of AM frequencies from 25 to 400 Hz, and over a range of frequency modulation (FM) rates from 0 to 30 Hz/ms. The stimuli are a simplification of speech transitions, with both AM and FM, but consisting of only one signal component. These experiments explore the ability to detect modulations that are distributed across critical bands. For fast rates of FM, the stimuli will sweep through a critical band within one to two periods of the AM. A rapid frequency transition also broadens the spectrum of the signal, so that these stimuli do not possess the distinct sidebands of an amplitude-modulated, stationary tone. Thus, both temporal cues from periodicities within individual channels and place cues derived from the excitation pattern will weaken as the FM rate increases. Nonetheless, data indicate that listeners readily detect amplitude modulation for all modulation frequencies at the highest rates of FM. These data will be discussed in light of some current physiologically based models of auditory processing, wherein both within- and across-channel temporal information is utilized. [Work supported by the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center, University of Washington.]

Recent studies on amplitude modulation (AM) detection for tones in noise reported that AM-detection thresholds improve when the AM stimulus is preceded by a noise precursor. The physiological mechanisms underlying this AM unmasking are unknown. One possibility is that adaptation to the level of the noise precursor facilitates AM encoding by causing a shift in neural rate-level functions to optimize level encoding around the precursor level. The aims of this study were to investigate whether such a dynamic-range adaptation is a plausible mechanism for the AM unmasking and whether frequency modulation (FM), thought to be encoded via AM, also exhibits the unmasking effect. Detection thresholds for AM and FM of tones in noise were measured with and without a fixed-level precursor. Listeners showing the unmasking effect were then tested with the precursor level roved over a wide range to modulate the effect of adaptation to the precursor level on the detection of the subsequent AM. It was found that FM detection benefits from a precursor and the magnitude of FM unmasking correlates with that of AM unmasking. Moreover, consistent with dynamic-range adaptation, the unmasking magnitude weakens as the level difference between the precursor and simultaneous masker of the tone increases.

This study tests the hypothesis that amplitude modulation (AM) detection will be better under conditions where basilar membrane (BM) response growth is expected to be linear rather than compressive. This hypothesis was tested by (1) comparing AM detection for a tonal carrier as a function of carrier level for subjects with and without cochlear hearing impairment (HI), and by (2) comparing AM detection for carriers presented with and without an ipsilateral notched-noise precursor, under the assumption that the precursor linearizes BM responses. Average AM detection thresholds were approximately 5 dB better for subjects with HI than for subjects with normal hearing (NH) at moderate-level carriers. Average AM detection for low-to-moderate level carriers was approximately 2 dB better with the precursor than without the precursor for subjects with NH, whereas precursor effects were absent or smaller for subjects with HI. Although effect sizes were small and individual differences were noted, group differences are consistent with better AM detection for conditions where BM responses are less compressive due to cochlear hearing loss or due to a reduction in cochlear gain. These findings suggest the auditory system may quickly adjust to the local soundscape to increase effective AM depth and improve signal-to-noise ratios.

The ability of listeners with cochlear implants to detect amplitude modulation (AM) of stimulation level has been linked to their ability to understand speech, but the specific features of AM stimuli that enable their detection remains unknown. At low modulation rates sensitivity is strongly associated with intensity resolution, but at high modulation rates sensitivity to AM stimuli further degrades, indicating additional temporal limits on detection. The goal of this work is to identify the specific components of AM pulse trains that listeners with cochlear implants use to detect AM. We measured increment and decrement detection thresholds for multiple increment/decrement durations in these listeners and compared these thresholds to their ability to detect sinusoidal AM at different rates. Electrical stimulation also provides a unique opportunity to present arbitrary stimulation waveforms through a single electrode, so we generated additional waveforms that either sharpened or smoothed different portions of each AM period to determine how this altered detectability. Preliminary results suggest that increments in stimulation level are the critical feature that listeners use to detect AM, and that at high AM rates increments are partially masked by preceding stimulation.

We compare the influence of time-frequency methods on analysis of time-varying renal autoregulation properties. Particularly, we examine if detection probabilities are similar for amplitude and frequency modulation for a modulated simulation signal among five time-frequency approaches, and if time-varying changes in system gain are detected using four approaches for estimating time-varying transfer functions. Detection of amplitude and frequency modulation varied among methods and was dependent upon background noise added to the simulated data. Three non-parametric time-frequency methods accurately detected modulation at low frequencies across noise levels but not high frequencies; while the converse was true for a fourth, and a fifth non-parametric approach was not capable of modulation detection. When applied to estimation of time-varying transfer functions, the parametric approach provided the most accurate estimations of system gain changes, detecting a 1dB step increase. Application of the appropriate methods to laser Doppler recordings of cortical blood flow and arterial pressure data in anesthetized rats reaffirm the presence of time-varying dynamics in renal autoregulation. An increase in the peak system gain and detection of amplitude modulation of the Myogenic mechanism both occurred after inhibition of nitric oxide synthase, suggesting a connection between the operation of underlying regulators and system performance.

Frequency modulation (FM) detection at a 2-Hz rate is thought to rely on temporal cues. For a 500-Hz carrier, this reliance is heightened by the use of dichotic presentation. Here, the modulator is inverted across ears such that binaural beats can cue FM. Detection acuity for FM is better in the dichotic than diotic condition, promoting the task as a measure of temporal fine structure (TFS) sensitivity. Older adults show less benefit of dichotic presentation than young adults, suggesting deficient TFS processing. This study extended the work to school-age children in order to gain a perspective of TFS processing across the lifespan. Children aged 4–10 yrs showed poorer FM detection in both diotic and dichotic conditions re young adults, and their performance was more similar to that of older adults. The dependence of the task on TFS processing was further tested by adding background noise. This reduced FM detection acuity but more for the dichotic than diotic condition. Overall, these results support the dependence of the FM detection task on TFS processing and demonstrate that such processing appears compromised at both ends of the age spectrum. [Work supported by NIDCD DC01507 (JHG) and DC00397 [EB].)

A parametric loudspeaker has been used for audio guidance to a specific area because it has a sharper directivity compared with the conventional electrodynamic loudspeakers. The parametric loudspeaker emits an ultrasound as a carrier wave, which is modulated with an audio signal and has large-amplitude. An audible sound is reproduced by the modulated ultrasound with large-amplitude distorted by the nonlinearity on the air. The conventional modulations have been proposed as the amplitude modulation and the frequency modulation. In the sound quality, the amplitude modulation is superior to the frequency modulation. However, in the sound pressure level, the frequency modulation is superior to the amplitude modulation. In the present paper, we especially focus on that the parametric loudspeaker will emit the speech signals for the audio guidance. Therefore, we propose new modulation method based on the combination of amplitude and frequency modulations, which are specialized for speech signals. More specifically, we apply the amplitude and frequency modulations to the divided frequency bands of speech signals, respectively. In order to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, we carried out evaluation experiments. As a result of evaluation experiments, we confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed method compared with conventional methods.

Sid Bacon was a pioneer in studies of the extent to which the detection of target amplitude modulation (AM) of a carrier is affected by additional (masker) amplitude modulation applied to the same carrier (within-channel modulation masking) or to a different carrier (across-channel modulation masking). Here, these two types of modulation masking were compared for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects. The target was either 4-Hz or 16-Hz sinusoidal AM of a 4000-Hz carrier. The target AM depth was fixed. The masker AM was applied either to the same carrier or to a carrier at 3179 or 2518 Hz. The masker AM rate was 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, or 4 times the target rate. The masker AM depth was varied adaptively to determine the value needed just to mask the target AM. Preliminary results indicate that within-channel modulation-masking patterns are similar for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects, suggesting that the hypothetical modulation filters are not affected by hearing loss. However, the amount of across-channel modulation masking is lower for normal-hearing than for hearing-impaired subjects, presumably because of the reduced frequency selectivity of the latter. The increased across-channel masking for the hearing-impaired subjects may contribute to their difficulties in understanding speech in background sounds.

Adaptation effects on amplitude modulation detection: behavioral and neurophysiological assessment in the goldfish auditory system.

We analyse 38-month of contiguous short-cadence data, concentrating on mode multiplets induced by the star rotation and on frequencies forming linear combinations that show intriguing behaviors during the course of the observations. We find clear signatures that point toward nonlinear effects predicted by resonant mode coupling mechanisms. These couplings can induce various mode behaviors for the components of multiplets and for frequencies related by linear relationships. We find that a triplet at 5760\,$\mu$Hz, a quintuplet at 5287\,$\mu$Hz and a ($\ell>2$) multiplet at 5412\,$\mu$Hz, all induced by rotation, show clear frequency and amplitude modulations which are typical of the so-called intermediate regime of a resonance between the components. One triplet at 316\,$\mu$Hz and a doublet at 394\,$\mu$Hz show modulated amplitude and constant frequency which can be associated with a narrow transitory regime of the resonance. Another triplet at 519\,$\mu$Hz appears to be in a frequency lock regime where both frequency and amplitude are constant. Additionally, three linear combination of frequencies near 6076\,$\mu$Hz also show amplitude and frequency modulations, which are likely related to a three-mode direct resonance. The identified frequency and amplitude modulations are the first clear-cut signatures of nonlinear resonant couplings occurring in pulsating hot B subdwarf stars. However, the observed behaviors suggest that the resonances occurring in these stars usually follow more complicated patterns than the simple predictions from current nonlinear theoretical frameworks. These results should therefore motivate further work to develop the theory of nonlinear stellar pulsations, considering that stars like KIC~10139564 now offer remarkable testbeds to do so.

Dissociation of psychophysical and EEG steady-state response measures of cross-modal temporal correspondence for amplitude modulated acoustic and vibrotactile stimulation

Previous studies have demonstrated that normal-hearing listeners can understand speech using the recovered "temporal envelopes," i.e., amplitude modulation (AM) cues from frequency modulation (FM). This study evaluated this mechanism in cochlear implant (CI) users for consonant identification. Stimuli containing only FM cues were created using 1, 2, 4, and 8-band FM-vocoders to determine if consonant identification performance would improve as the recovered AM cues become more available. A consistent improvement was observed as the band number decreased from 8 to 1, supporting the hypothesis that (1) the CI sound processor generates recovered AM cues from broadband FM, and (2) CI users can use the recovered AM cues to recognize speech. The correlation between the intact and the recovered AM components at the output of the sound processor was also generally higher when the band number was low, supporting the consonant identification results. Moreover, CI subjects who were better at using recovered AM cues from broadband FM cues showed better identification performance with intact (unprocessed) speech stimuli. This suggests that speech perception performance variability in CI users may be partly caused by differences in their ability to use AM cues recovered from FM speech cues.

The present study tested the existence of modulation filters by transposing the concept of excitation pattern to the amplitude modulation (AM) domain. In the first experiment, AM rate-discrimination thresholds (DLFs) for white-noise carriers with AM reference rates of 4, 16, and 64 Hz were measured in five normal-hearing listeners. AM depth was either (i) fixed at 0.2, 0.6, or 1.0, or (ii) varied randomly between 0.2 and 1.0. Randomization of the modulation depth occurred either between trials or between the two intervals of the same trial. In a second experiment, detection thresholds of slow (1 or 4 Hz) frequency modulation (FMDLs) applied to the AM carrier (of identical rates as in the previous experiment) were measured, with and without the presence of a slow sinusoidal modulation applied to the depth of the AM carrier. Overall, the data show that DLFs are less affected than FMDLs by variations in the depth of AM. The results are discussed in light of current models of AM perception.

Developmental dyslexia is associated with deficits in the processing of basic auditory stimuli. Yet it is unclear how these sensory impairments might contribute to poor reading skills. This study better characterizes the relationship between phonological decoding skills, the lack of which is generally accepted to comprise the core deficit in reading disabilities, and auditory sensitivity to amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM). Thirty-eight adult subjects, 17 of whom had a history of developmental dyslexia, completed a battery of psychophysical measures of sensitivity to FM and AM at different modulation rates, along with a measure of pseudoword reading accuracy and standardized assessments of literacy and cognitive skills. The subjects with a history of dyslexia were significantly less sensitive than controls to 2-Hz FM and 20-Hz AM only. The absence of a significant group difference for 2-Hz AM shows that the dyslexics do not have a general deficit in detecting all slow modulations. Thresholds for detecting 2-Hz and 240-Hz FM and 20-Hz AM correlated significantly with pseudoword reading accuracy. After accounting for various cognitive skills, however, multiple regression analyses showed that detection thresholds for both 2-Hz FM and 20-Hz AM were significant and independent predictors of pseudoword reading ability in the entire sample. Thresholds for 2-Hz AM and 240-Hz FM did not explain significant additional variance in pseudoword reading skill. It is therefore possible that certain components of auditory processing of modulations are related to phonological decoding skills, whereas others are not.

Teleost fish of the order Gymnotiformes are distinguished by their ability to produce electric discharges by means of specialized organs. These electric organ discharges serve various behavioral functions, including communication. During such electric interactions, male brown ghost knifefish ( Apteronotus leptorhynchus (Ellis in Eigenmann, 1912)) generate several types of transient frequency and amplitude modulations (“chirps”) of the otherwise nearly constant discharges. Previous studies have shown that the chirps generated by one individual follow those of the other with a preferred latency of approximately 500–1000 ms. As demonstrated in the present study, signals consisting of either frequency modulations or amplitude modulations are able to trigger this echo response. Signals composed of just amplitude modulations are effective in triggering an echo response only if the reduction in amplitude is large (approximately 40%, relative to baseline of the electric organ discharge of the emitting fish). By contrast, in frequency-modulated signals, a maximum frequency increase as small as 1.2% relative to baseline frequency is sufficient to trigger an echo response. This remarkable sensitivity might be an adaptation for the detection of so-called type-2 chirps, as chirps of this type are composed of rather small frequency increases and negligible amplitude modulations. In line with this hypothesis is the observation that during electric interactions of two fish, the generation of these chirps dominates the production of any of the other five chirp types known.